


Princess Catelyn's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad  Day

by Phylwannabe



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Humor, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23936947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phylwannabe/pseuds/Phylwannabe
Summary: Princess Catelyn can't find anyone in Winterfell who will bend the knee to her, leading to an eventful, but discouraging, day until her final discovery that one special man will give her the world.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 34
Kudos: 167





	Princess Catelyn's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad  Day

**Author's Note:**

> This story is my second fan fiction attempt and is in the same universe as "Titles" which was about Robb II, son of Queen Sansa and Jon Snow. This story is all about Robb's little sister, Princess Catelyn and, paraphrasing Alexander's adventures, her "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad" day. There are some canon Easter Eggs hidden in the story, a "good pet, bad pet" encounter, and even a very brief shout out to a famous TV western character. Hope you enjoy!

Princess Catelyn’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

“Bend the knee, Ghost, bend the knee to your Princess”. So said five year old Catelyn Stark as she sternly ordered her father’s direwolf to acknowledge her royal birth. Her demand was met by a huge yawn as Ghost stretched his front paws forward until his great head lowered almost to the floor of her playroom, but then promptly flopped over on his back, paws waving in the air, begging for a belly rub.

Catelyn huffed, stomping her foot, as she crossed her arms and glared down at her canine courtier. “No Ghost, you _must_ keep bending the knee until I give you leave to rise!” Ghost’s tongue lolled sideways out of his doggy mouth and Catelyn knew when she was beat. Rubbing him quickly, she went in search of a more reverential audience.....

An hour before supper, Catelyn sat dejectedly on the steps leading from the Great Hall to the family quarters. Reviewing her eventful day, she realized that her search for respect had yielded decidedly disappointing results!

Maester Sam had immediately stopped in his tracks when she commanded, begging off from bending the knee when he pointed out that his arms were full of medicines and bandages needed to replenish the castle infirmary. He _did_ slip a lemon drop into her pocket and, red-faced, admonished her to tell no one that she had received sweets before she broke her fast. Likewise, Sir Davos had begged off from dropping to the ground before his Princess, claiming old age and bad knees, but at least he had left her with another one of his treasures, whittled from the odd piece of firewood, to add to her collection. This masterpiece, as he pointed out, was that of “a mermaid from the Whispering Seas”. Catelyn did love mermaids!

Next she approached her brother, Robb, but he firmly shook his head as he informed her that a “Prince doesn’t have to bend the knee to a Princess, not unless he is proposing marriage.” Robb already thought he knew pretty much everything about every subject, but Catelyn had to admit he was probably right this time. She would _never_ expect her almost teenage brother, gawky elbows, gangly legs, stinky feet and all, to _ever_ propose marriage to her. And yet, Robb did sometimes surprise. When he saw her gray-blue eyes welling with tears, he brusquely handed her one of his dragon glass arrowheads collected from the fields around Winterfell, a prized relic from the North’s battle with the Dead. “Go on with you now, Sister, and watch your step. Hoster just brought the cattle through the courtyard and there are dung patties all around”.

Tormund was leader of the Free Folk and _everyone_ knew Free Folk didn’t kneel, so Catelyn didn’t even ask that courtesy from her favorite wildling. She did ask for a ride around the keep on his tall shoulders which he granted all while singing about a “bear” and a “maiden” at the top of his lungs. Even though her Lady Mother thought that tune totally unsuitable for her daughter’s ears, Catelyn loved the melody and the way Uncle Tormund would wag his bushy eyebrows up and down in time to the rhythm as he sang.

The princess grabbed an apple from the kitchen and asked Cook if she felt like bending the knee today, gaining not a curtsey, but a swat on her backside _and_ a lemon cake to soothe the blow. She wandered from the kitchen to the stables where she found Hoster’s son, whom everyone called Little Hoss, grooming her father’s stallion. Catelyn thought this nickname quite amusing because Little Hoss was almost as big as Tormund Giantsbane and he wasn’t even fully grown yet!

“Hoss, you must bend the knee to me, your Princess,” Catelyn loftily decreed. “Sorry, miss, the big boy replied, but I have to get the King’s horse ready, or my Da will have me hide”. Catelyn dejectedly scuffed her toe along the loose straw on the stable floor, drawing the attention of Little Hoss. “Oh my Lady! Are your feet hurtin’ ye?”, he gasped. Dropping to his knees, Hoss bid her sit on a bale of straw and then proceeded to change her shoes from the wrong to the right feet, lacing them up good and proper to boot. Embarrassed that in her excitement to start her day, she had _once_ again forgotten her left from her right, Catelyn kept her head tucked into her chin and let her long black curls hide her face. Finishing the job, Hoss sat back, his large arms braced on his haunches and smiled at the little girl. “Nothing wrong with wearing your shoes on different feet, I don’t suppose. Probably breaks them in better an’ all. Don’t worry, it will be _our_ secret”. Relieved, Catelyn waved and hurried off, tallying Hoss’ efforts on her behalf as at least a _partial_ bending of the knee, even if Hoss had not actually acted to fulfill a royal purpose.

After lunch Catelyn found her way into the Great Hall where Queen Sansa was holding court. The Queen was hearing petitions on this day and the hall was full of supplicants, lords and ladies as well as common folk. Catelyn was in absolute awe of her beautiful mother. She was so regal with her dignified posture and her red hair burnished to a glow unmatched even by that of the crown on her head. Catelyn loved how kind and gracious her mother was to everyone who appeared before her, no matter their station in life. Today, however, Catelyn’s focus was drawn to the fact that as each one of her subjects approached the Queen, they would bend low before her simple, but elegant, wooden throne. Catelyn gasped with the sudden realization that she, a Princess of the North, could _never_ receive the adulation due her, not because people didn’t want to bend the knee to her, but because she didn’t have a throne to sit on like the Queen.

She had been wasting time all day! No one would _ever_ bend the knee to her!

Dejectedly, Catelyn slipped from the hall and crept back up the stairs. She stopped on the landing and slumped to the floor, sticking her short legs out over the topmost step and waving them in the air. Sighing, Catelyn reached into the deep pocket of her dress and pulled out the booty her failed efforts to be royal on this day had landed her: a candy, a mermaid, an arrowhead, and a partially eaten apple. Cook’s sweet was _long_ gone; like her mother, Catelyn had a soft spot for lemon cakes!

Humming Tormund’s tune now firmly stuck in her head, she leaned back on one elbow and sailed the mermaid through the Whispering Seas of her imagination. The mermaid was riding the crest of a particularly high wave when, suddenly, a great white furry body charged past Catelyn, making a beeline for Littlefinger, the castle cat. Fingers was a good mouser, but Ghost despised him and made the cat’s life a journey through the seven hells.

Catelyn lost her grip on the mermaid. In an effort to rescue her treasure, she leaned way over the step, losing her balance. Suddenly, Catelyn found herself tumbling helplessly, head over heel, unable to stop herself, until she landed on the floor below. Dazed and breathless, she lay there for a long moment. Only when a sheepish Ghost came nosing about, a quiet whine of sympathy in his throat, did she let loose with desperate sobs that shook her small body. She buried her face in her best friend’s ruff and let loose all the indignities of the day, her sobs slowing only when she heard a familiar, well-loved voice above her.

She loosened her grip on the dire wolf only to be swept into the comforting arms of her father. Rocking her back and forth, he enveloped her in his great fur cloak and worriedly asked if she was hurt. Catelyn shook her head, once, twice,...but then the embarrassments of her terrible day were too much and burst tearfully from her, “Oh, Papa, it was awful! No one treats me like a Princess! I couldn’t get _anyone_ to bend the knee to me, not even Robb!” Snuffling, she buried deeper into her father’s chest and whispered, “And I know why. It’s because I don’t have a throne like Mama.”

His gruff voice soothed her, “Sweetling, I’m sorry, your Papa is so, so, sorry. If I could, I would give you the grandest throne in all of the known world!” He stopped rocking her then and nudged her away from his shoulder so he could look into her tear stained face. “Someday, when you are older, your Mother and I will find you a Prince who is brave, strong and gentle, and he _will_ bend the knee to you, not because you are a Princess, but because he will love you more than anything.”

Catelyn worried her full lower lip between her teeth and looked up at her father from under her tear stained lashes. “The way you love Mama?” Her father nodded solemnly. “Oh, do you promise, Papa? Mama says GrandNed promised that and she only found you after a long, long, long, time!”

The man took the small hand of his daughter into his own scarred, calloused palm, and gently kissed it, then slowly intoned: “On my honor as a Stark, on my honor as Consort to the Queen, I promise this to you, Princess Catelyn.” Then he bent the knee, drawing Long Claw from its sheath and laying the great sword at her tiny feet. Catelyn blushed. Her Papa was silly, but she loved him so!

Standing up, her father raised Catelyn to her feet and brushed her dark curls back repeatedly. Failing to restore his daughter to an appearance likely suitable for the expectations of his Lady Wife, he started laughing and just kept on laughing as he removed the tie that kept his own unruly locks in some semblance of order. Then he shook his head just like Ghost shook off after a bath. Catelyn laughed as her father swept her, unruly locks, wooden mermaid, lemon drop, arrowhead and all, into his arms and headed for supper. Like always, her Papa had made her terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, all better, and she waved her arms in triumph as Jon Snow regally carried her on his shoulders into the glow of the Great Hall. 


End file.
